


Let Us Be The Comfort (and not the whetstone)

by Leni



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-24 23:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6170695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aaron finds the wrong Kane sibling at the pool - and the world changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Comfort

"It's okay," she reassured Lily, glancing at the boy sobering up on her couch. "He made it here."

She didn't tell her friend that there was a frozen bag of peas held against Logan's nose. Or that he looked as if he was a split second away from jumping back in the Bird and running off to parts unknown.

Veronica measured his expression against what she knew had been the worst moment of Logan's life. This was nothing compared to the realization that his father had murdered his best friend. No, Logan wasn't anywhere near breaking point - and Veronica had witnessed that too many times for her liking in the last year - but he looked angry enough not to bother to think before he spoke. She really didn't want to end up tossing him out after whatever he'd been through already.

Perhaps a retreat into her room was the best idea.

"I won't bite, Ronnie," he grumbled, as if he'd read her mind.

But then, Lily always insisted that her face was an open book. It might be the only opinion Lily and Wallace held in common.

Not too long ago, Veronica would have wagged a playful finger at Logan and reminded him that her sources said otherwise. But she still couldn't bring herself to tease Logan about his relationship with Lily.

"Are you sure?" she said instead, making a show of pulling at the corner of Logan's lips to check his teeth.

She was sorry for that when Logan twisted his head and winced as the movement pulled at his bruise. "Oops," she murmured. 

"'S fine," he said, and patted the seat next to him.

Veronica sat.

It should have taken long forethought for such a taller figure as Logan's to fold itself and resettle with his head on Veronica's lap, practically curled around her. But they had years of practice, always comfortable around each other in the way of young puppies who seek a familiar warmth and younger teenagers who find safety among friends. 

They've held each other for comfort, and in grief, and it was impossible to think of being so close and not feeling... content.

Her hand fell instinctively to brush his hair behind his ear, and then drifted to massage the back of his skull. This, she hadn't needed Lily to tell her that Logan liked.

"Was it so bad?" Veronica asked after a long moment, low enough that if Logan wanted to pretend to have fallen asleep, he wouldn't be too obvious.

He was silent for a long moment. Then: "Remember that time Lily hired you to prove her dad had an alibi?"

Veronica shuddered. Lily had convinced her to use a few tricks she'd picked up from spending so much time among cops, and look through the Neptune's records. She had forgotten to mention that the woman in Jake Kane's hotel room was Veronica's own mother.

It had been their first fight, and if Veronica had to be honest, their friendship had never recovered.

"Yeah," she answered.

She could have forgiven Lily for playing her. Any licensed P.I. would have hesitated to present evidence that the Sheriff's wife was stepping out on him, but their daughter could be trusted to tell the truth. In a twisted way, Veronica was glad to have been forced to see the truth for herself.

But to realize that her own mother would have thrown her dad's career down the drain, just to keep her own secrets.... No, it had been easier to stay mad at Lily for as long as she could.

Logan glanced at her face. "Exactly. And remember the last time she invited me over to her place?"

Of course, if Veronica could shift some of the blame on Lily for wreaking her relationship with her mother, it was nothing to Logan's reasons.

At least Lianne was still alive.

And Lily had never betrayed her.

Veronica hadn't imagined Logan could be so vicious until he lashed out against his former girlfriend - though at least Lily had withstood the storm more or less intact. Veronica knew she'd grown sharp edges just by standing in the middle of the two.

"I still can't believe she _wanted_ me there," Logan said, sounding just as bewildered as he'd looked by the end of that night. "The sadistic bitch."

Veronica didn't say that, perhaps, facing the truth had also been better for him. They'd had that discussion several times already.

The last time Logan had stepped in the Kane household, Veronica had been there as well. It had been later in the week of the revelation of Jake Kane and her mother's affair. The huge confrontation. The accusations. Celeste threatening to put a contract on Lianne; Veronica's dad promising to throw Celeste in jail if she made so much as one suspicious call; Jake Kane trying to patch it all up with money.

It had only grown more ridiculous, and louder, after that.

And in the middle of all that shouting, Lily had come in, motioned at Logan and Veronica to take their seats and winked at them. "Surprise!" she'd tried to interrupt the grown-ups, holding up a couple of video tapes.

Nobody had reacted.

"Excuse me!" she'd shouted after a beat, loud enough that it cut through the grown-up fight. "I have a secret. And now's the time to share."

"Lily, please," Celeste had hissed.

"Come on, Celeste. Haven't you always warned me that men only want one thing from me?" She walked to the entertainment unit and popped a tape in. "At least you'll have the consolation of knowing I was innocent of the making of this film. I never would have consented." She sniffed. "He _so_ didn't take my best angle."

Jake Kane had roared, practically lunging for the remote.

Lily had been faster.

"Isn't it such a coincidence," she'd noted out loud a minute later, the only noise in a roomful of shocked silence, "that my brother was murdered right after I secured these videos?"

The Kane-Mars affair was forgotten, several breakables found their end in the wake of Logan's reaction, and the Neptune Sheriff ended the night with a civil conversation with the father of an underage girl.

Veronica didn't think anything else would have gotten Celeste and Lianne to stop going at each other's throats. "Such a mess," she said now.

"That's our Lily. She can always be trusted to pull the right strings for maximum disaster. But at least _then_ I came out with my pretty face intact."

She didn't remark on the thread of fondness in his voice. As she well knew, it was impossible to stay mad at Lily forever. "So what did she do this time?"

Logan huffed. "Broke up with Weevil."

Veronica's brow furrowed. Of Lily's relationships, the one with the leader of the local biker gang was the most stable. Of course, 'stable' and Lily weren't even in the same dictionary. "Again?"

"And for good, it seems. Told him she could pick a better loser with eyes closed -" Logan's mouth twisted. "-which the idiot took to mean I was getting her back."

Veronica snorted a laugh.

"Sure, Ronnie. Laugh at my misery."

Veronica rolled her eyes, but petted him at the temples. "You just don't know how to take a compliment, Logan," she told him, almost able to keep in the amusement. "Even Navarro admits you're better than him at something."

"Har, har."

"Watch out. Any day now, you'll hang out together. There might be matching bracelets involv---ow!"

Logan moved the iced pack away from her middle, but the cold still seeped through the thin shirt. He looked up at her, one eyebrow cocked up. "You deserved that."

"You're so bitchy after you get in a fistfight," she scolded him. "Now shoo; I need to go change."

"Don't worry about me," he said, turning his expression into a leer. "You can just take it off if it really bothers you."

Veronica felt tempted to flick his nose, but couldn't actually bring herself to hurt him further. Weevil had done quite a job on Logan's face. 

She sighed and relaxed, going back to playing with his hair. "You're horrible, Logan Echolls."

"And you're all sweetness, Veronica Mars."

They both grinned.

Because only good friends could lie to each other so shamelessly.

 

The End  
05/03/16


	2. Coda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Truthwritaslies at [Comment Fic](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/683541.html?thread=89969429#t89969429). Prompt:
> 
>  **I wanna ruin our friendship  
> **  
>  We should be lovers instead  
> I don't know how to say this  
> 'Cause you're really my dearest friend.  
> -Jenny, Studio Killers.

Her only warning was the tightening of his fingers at her chin, as he tipped her head a few inches back. 

Logan was going to kiss her.

They had danced around this moment for months. Because he wasn't supposed to be her type, too cocky and sharp, too difficult to manage; and she wasn't supposed to be his kind of girl, the one who'd force him to pause before taking a risk and would be to stubborn to let him charm her into turning a blind eye to his faults.

Once, the only thing they had in common had been their attachment to the Kane siblings. They'd been two opposing corners in their little quartet, necessary for the balance, but always keeping their distance.

But then Duncan was dead, and Lily had torn their world apart in her quest to unmask her brother's killer.

In the aftermath, what had been broken couldn't be patched back together. 

She and Logan had - eventually and in their own ways - forgiven Lily. Because it was the right thing to do and, deep down, because she was the last connection they had to Duncan.

And somehow they'd grown closer together in the process.

"Logan?"

They were good friends. Best friends, even, after the chaos they'd survived together.

And now Logan was going to kiss her.

And she was going to let him.

"This is going to ruin everything," she heard him mutter.

Veronica knew what he meant. The reason she'd done her best to shove her attraction aside and focus only on their friendship. The reason she'd smiled when he introduced a new girlfriend, and willingly gone on some dates of her own.

Because their friendship was the only reminder of happier times, and to throw it away and jump into this...

It could break her heart.

Or it could be the stuff of legends.

"I don't care," Veronica heard herself say. _I won't let it,_ she meant.

And she kissed him.

 

The End  
06/03/16

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and bunnies are welcome!


End file.
